New
by redex
Summary: Takao and Kai have been long-term partners for a while when Takao is diagnosed with cancer. [oneshot]


Now, I used liver cancer in this fic. Please do not be offended. My aunt had breast cancer, and I assumed the treatment was much the same, except an operation was crucial to the operation of this fic, so I included one. Not sure if you really do operate on a liver cancer patient, but i do know you have to go on a rigorious diet if you have to have your liver removed. go Bio class. X3 In any case, **Takao/Kai** for those of you who didn't notice in the summery.

**Disclaimer: **Red doesn't own Beyblade.

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**New**

By Red

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Kai sat in the hard chair impassively. Max and Rei were sitting on a bench beside him, the blonde still crying softly into his friend's shirt, while Rei simply leant back against the wall, eyes shut. Kai wasn't sure if he had fallen asleep or was just trying to keep more tears from reddening his eyes further.  
  
Kai, Kai felt dead. Unlike his friends, he wasn't scared, he couldn't cry any more, and sleep hadn't come for him in a long long time. Months ago, maybe, he would be choking back tears, but now... now it was the endgame, and he couldn't do it. Takao was down a hall, lying scarily white on a surgical table, and he couldn't get that face out of his mind.   
  
It was just over a year now, since Kai's long-term partner had been diagnosed with cancer of the liver. He had been put on a rigours diet that was easy to keep to, because once the radiation treatments started, Takao stopped eating anyways.   
  
Kai remembered the day he realized everything had changed. When it hit him that he'd never be able to go back to the way it was before with his love.  
  
He was sitting in the kitchen, looking at the week's grocery bills. They were using up such less food that they were paying nearly twenty dollars less a week from before. Normally Takao made up at least two thirds of the food they bought. He would be on this diet for the rest of his life, even after the operation. He broke down into wet sobs, burying his tired, worn face in his equally worn hands. Nothing, nothing would be the same again.   
  
Kai stared down at those same hands, and felt the same ache that had been haunting every hour of his life these past 13 months. He just wanted it all to be over. For everything to go away and let him live. He wanted Takao back. Not Patient 10889, Takao Kinomiya, his lover, the elementary school teacher who smiled and laughed all day long, no matter what.  
  
He looked up at the clock over on the wall (he had given up wearing a watch a while ago) and realized that it had been 5 hours since the operation had began. Considering how many hours he had spent in the hospital before, this shouldn't have felt so long, but he was feeling horribly alone this time. He couldn't go in and watch, stand by to hold Takao's hand as he was put under. He was all alone because he couldn't be with Takao.  
  
Kai entered the all-too-familiar intensive care room, scared of what he would find lying on the single bed. His shoes made clicking tread on the tiled floors until he stopped at the edge of the large bed. His cold, pale fingers rested on the railing on the bed as he gazed wearily down on Takao's sleeping form. The hum and whirr of the machines around the bed told him that his love was still alive, and yet the abnormal silence emanating from Takao's body made him scared.   
  
He reached out and gently stroked his forehead, the lack of hair no longer a shock to see. All he wanted to see right now was to see Takao up and about, laughing over a cup of coffee early in the morning with a tale from his class. Kneeling in their small garden, digging up a hole in the rich earth to put a new plant in. Even if he could just see Takao smile all the time, like he used to, it would all be worth it. They would be able to move on if smiles were possible.  
  
"I love you," he whispered in the sanctity of the ward, and bent down to place a dry, gentle kiss on the sleeping form's head.   
  
Kai was fretting over bills in the kitchen while Takao sat outside in the brief chance of sunlight before another spring rain came down upon them. They were close to debt, what with all their normal bills to pay, plus the hospital bills. Because Takao couldn't go back to work until he was strong enough, and Kai had been spending most of his time home taking care of him it was hard to find money. They would make do with what they had, but it was still pretty tight.   
  
"Kai?"  
  
Takao's voice made Kai drop everything. He set the envelopes and papers on the kitchen table and headed down the hall to the back deck. When he stepped outside he half expected Takao to have hurt himself, and he supposed he must have looked rather worried, because when Takao saw him he laughed softly. It was still the most beautiful sound Kai could ever imagine. When Takao could laugh, things were good. The man in question was holding a small clay pot in his soil-incrusted hands and he held it out to Kai like a child looking for praise. A small green leaf on a thin stem that looked like it wouldn't hold much was poking up out of the dirt carefully placed around it.  
  
"I didn't even plant it, it just grew there by itself," Takao said, smiling. "I'm not even sure what kind of plant it is, but it looks like it will be pretty..."  
  
Kai felt tears choking him and making it hard to breath. He launched himself forward and somehow got around Takao's arms and the pot to fall on his knees in front of the seated patient and bury his face in his lover's stomach. The tears leaked out as he hugged the body for support, the feeling of Takao's loving hand rubbing his back and holding him close. They stayed there for a while, until Kai's tears all ran out and found their place on Takao's skin. Then Kai just sat down with his back to his companion's knees and rested his head on his lap while they sat and watched the sun go down, colored a beautiful pink and purple, promising more rain the next day. But no matter what the weather was tomorrow, it would still be a new day.

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Please review, they are always welcome. There will be no further chapters, please don't waste your time asking for one, although it's always flattering. ;)

See yas round.


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